February’s Credit Crunch Munch Round-up

Well we’ve had a fabulous response to this month’s Credit Crunch Munch with 38 entries so in the order they arrived  I am going to attempt to do all your clever money saving dishes justice (you might want to go and stick the kettle on)!

First up was myself with Yorkshire Puddings with Ice Cream & Golden Syrup dish which I posted in celebration of British Yorkshire Pudding Day which was on 3rd February. A satisfying pudding which can be frozen ahead of time and then reheated and uses ingredients that most people have to hand!

The next entry was from Angela at My Golden Pear with her Lemon Ping Pudding which is brilliantly frugal not just  the cost of the ingredients but also the economy of cooking it for just 4 minutes in a microwave; double whammy and a yummy treat for the whole family!

Louisa over Chez Foti made a delicious and frugal Rosemary & Cannellini Bean Risotto which she says is good enough to entertain with! Plus there was an amusing tail of beans, bugs and chickens:-)

Janet over at the taste space entered a very nutritious and tasty vegetarian dish, Spaghetti Squash with Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Chickpeas, I’ve never even had a Spaghetti Squash and am intrigued now at this marvel of nature and want to try one.

Jacqueline at How to be a Gourmand offered up her delicious Apple and Rhubarb Nut Crumble which had the added twist of grated fresh ginger in with the fruit, a comforting and nutritious dish for this time of year using up all those nuts we all seem to ferret away like squirrels.

Michelle from Utterly Scrummy along with her daughters made these fabulous Mixed Berry Tarts which worked out at just 20p each. Using frozen fruit to make the compote was a real money saver and could be used for dessert or a tea time treat.

Anneli over at Delicieux gave us not 1 but 2 recipes Cannelloni with Leeks and Brie and

Cannelloni Stuffed with Salmon and Prawns which were both jaw droppingly mouth watering and managed to use up some leftovers in the fridge that needed using up!

Because I’d been moaning about the lack of puddings in last month’s challenge Elizabeth took the hint and came up with Caribbean Dream Squares a twist on her favourite childhood pudding (The Pineapple Square). She cunningly used up her Gingerbread House from Christmas to come up with the base for her pudding – waste not want not – and married it with some exotic mango and crushed tinned pineapple, yummy!

Next Jibber Jabber UK came up with an extremely economical and delicious dish of Cheese Topped Beef Pie which her mother used to make from the left over roast on a Sunday. A really frugal dish that uses ingredients that everyone has at home. I love it when dishes are handed down the generations as they carry so many memories too!

Kate over at Turquoise Lemons came up with an exotic twist on an old classic in the form of Leftover Coconut Milk Rice Pudding with Honey, Clementine and Cloves. The fusion of flavours here is simply divine and I would never have thought to put citrus with rice pudding

Ren Behan’s Fabulicious Food offered up Courgette or Zucchini Boats with Bolognese Sauce which makes a little Bolognese Sauce go a very long way and as my daughter loves both these things I have to try this soon! How often have you had some leftover Bolognese, now you can freeze it and make these next time!

And now for a post from Karen over at Lavender and Lovage – a thrifty Home Made Chicken Stock-Recipe because we really should get the full value out of our roast poultry. It can form the basis for delicious dishes like soups, curries, pies etc and it’s so much better for you than a stock cube, our grandparents would never have thrown away a carcass!

Jane over at Onions and Paper brought us her well risen Onion Bread Rolls which worked out a £1 for 6 which is far cheaper than a fresh roll from a baker’s or supermarket and looked utterly scrummy. I could just see these beauties with a nice wedge of cheese and pickle or some soup!

Sarah over at Maison Cupcake decided to use up her store cupboard ingredients to make Store Cupboard Granola, she wasn’t sure if it was cheaper than buying it, but if you’re leaving your nuts and seeds to go out of date this is a good way of using them up so this is saving money that otherwise might be wasted! I would love this sprinkled on some yogurt or just as a snack.

Helen (my fellow cohort and all-around good egg) at Fuss Free Flavours brought us this mouthwatering Sausage Meat Sauce for Pasta or Sloppy Joes which is making me hungry just looking at it. This is the ultimate in budget cooking when 2 sausages can provide 4 delicious meals, now that’s a Money Saving Expert!

Another tasty entry here from Chris who resides at Cooking Around the World – Ginger-Marzipan-Chocolate-Pralines. These would be a splendid treat for someone (like me who loves marzipan) for say Mother’s Day and so much cheaper to make your own than buying from the shops and so much more thoughtful too!

Next up it was me again, (I’m hosting and I’ll enter as many times as I want to!) Don’t worry I won’t overburden you if you ever decide to host! A Bacon Roly Poly brought up to date and using the latest Pudding Sleeve gadget that hadn’t been invented when this pudding was invented. Frugal and filling – “a meal for tough guys” as my Birds Eye Book put it!

Oat Seed and Fruit Cookies from Gill at Pigling Bland, don’t they just look plump and gorgeous, could do with one with cuppa right now! Again these use inexpensive store cupboard ingredients and Gill tells us that if we don’t have stem ginger syrup, just use honey or golden syrup so you’ve no excuse not to make these!

Louisa at Chez Foti brought her friend Anneli from Delicieux’s Slow Cooked Blue Cheese Pulled Pork with Cider and Apple Sauce to the challenge and although I’m not a lover of blue cheese this dish looks absolutely delectable. Indeed my hubby even drew my attention to this recipe as he loves blue cheese and who doesn’t like pulled pork?  This would be great entertaining food without breaking the bank!

Ooh this Sausage, Vegetable and Pearl Barley Hotpot from Michelle at Utterly Scrummy is another corker. Packed full of vegetables it’s an all-in-one meal which also saves on the washing up, my kind of meal, wins on all counts! (Now where are those sausages?)

Me, again! This time my Budget Valentine Chocolates using the value own brand supermarket chocolate and giving it a fancy make over! 12 chocolates came in at 75p and my husband loved them. You could make them for any occassion really and older kids could make them for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day etc!

Another entry from Ren Behan’s Fabulicious Food with Caramel and Cocoa Cupcakes, I’m drooling just typing those words (why can’t this be a taste test too?) Ren said she saw Valentine Cupcakes in town at £2.50 a piece and as she had all the ingredients in her store cupboard saved herself a tidy sum – these would make a lovely gift for someone’s birthday!

A hearty (literally) Minced Beef Pie is next from Victoria over at A Kick at the Pantry Door. She used up her frozen vegetables and a tin of broad beans plus other storecupboard ingredients to make up this fabulous and nutritious pie, it would certainly put a smile on my face!

Next up Jacqueline over at Tinned Tomatoes gave us these Chocolate and Banana Flapjacks that her son (heart melts just saying his name) Cooper made. Deep and chewy and adaptable to Vegan or not, Jacqueline tells us “You will love these flapjacks” and I’m sure we will. Again we all have these inexpensive ingredients to hand and I for one am going to make some for my kid’s packed lunches as shop-bought snacks are just so expensive!

Are flapjacks like buses, you wait for one then two come along at once. So here’s another fabulous entry from Jen over at Blue Kitchen Bakes, Cranberry Sauce Flapjacks, just look at the fruit oozing from those flapjacks (drooling again)! Buying cranberries when they’re cheap and freezing them is a great idea!

Rachel at Marmaduke Scarlet brought us this yummilicious Spaghetti Fritatta and a wonderful tale of her ex boyfriend (she’s funny). This dish is super savvy and super tasty and I’m so pleased she’s posted it as it’s a dish I know my ultra fussy eater daughter would love. Thank you so much Rachel!

Helen at Fuss Free Flavours’ turn again with French Toast Crumpets (look away if you’re on a diet). These are genius, who could have thought these up except Helen, always a step ahead. A great filling frugal recipe to start the day, which with a teenage son (with the hunger of a small nation) I am very grateful for!

Sausage, Bean and Veggie Hotpot is up next from Chez Foti, another fab entry. You have to go and see what wonderful ingredients lie underneath that beautiful potato topping (salivating again) in a dish that will serve a family of 4 twice, hence saving on a night of cooking/washing up too – result!

A third entry from Helen at Fuss Free Flavours (you wait, Helen, you might get 4 from me next month LOL). Vegan Date and Orange Cake that was deemed so beautiful it got featured on Taste Spotting (where you won’t find me!) This cake was adapted from her extremely popular and delicious Easy Peasy Ginger Cake and she managed to bring back to life some dried-up old dates with boiling water – now that’s frugal!

Easy Peasy Chocolate and Banana Croissant Bread and Butter Pudding, that’s easy for you to say Anneli at Delicieux! These were made using up stale croissants so if you see any on their last legs going cheap then this is what you should do with them, an utterly divine dessert that serves 8:-)

A beautiful entry now from Chocolate Log Blog, Chocolate Pancakes with Blackcurrant and Rose Compote which came about after a broken-down freezer disaster (hence the blackcurrants) and the need to use up her homemade rose syrup and mint vodka. What a happy accident that turned out to be!

Nic over at Lemon and Cheese came up with a fabulously economical dish, Watercress and Feta Fritatta which came about when she had a leftover egg after making beef burgers. After a forage in the fridge, she came up with this tasty dish which served her for 2 days!

Katie from Feeding Boys and a Firefighter came up with Cheese, Ham and Tomato Quesadillas which are a super idea and so quick and easy to make as well as being cheap. Again you can adapt these to whatever you have in the fridge that needs using up.

Petra at Food Eat Love invented this tasty-looking Spagbol Lasagne after making far too much Spaghetti Bolognese. She made a bechamel sauce to which she added some spinach and mushrooms and was very pleased to turn her £3.50 mince into 2 delicious meals!

And for our final entry (are you still with me?) Caroline at Caroline Makes entered her Spiced Butternut Squash Cottage Pie for a tasty, nutritious, and low-fat alternative to the traditional Cottage Pie. Caroline managed to buy her mince reduced (maybe due to #horsegate) so this dish was extra frugal!

Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to enter Credit Crunch Munch, Helen and I have thoroughly enjoyed drooling over all your recipes and I’m so pleased to have them all in one place as there is so much here that I want to try.

Helen at Fuss Free Flavours will be hosting Credit Crunch Munch in March and she has a fabulous prize of an EasiYo Yogurt Maker this month, so keep your brilliant recipes coming in as we love seeing how you save money in your kitchen.

Oh and talking of prizes I nearly forgot to draw the winner of this month’s prize of a Pudding Sleeve which Mermaid have kindly donated. We used my lottery ball pen and my daughter gave it a shake and the winning number was 11, so that means that Ren Behan is the winner as her Courgette or Zucchini Boats with Bolognese Sauce were the eleventh entry. Do drop me a line so that I can get your prize delivered to you Ren.

Until next time.

Camilla xxx